A couple of weeks ago, during half term, I was reading Bertrand Russell’s book ‘The Problems of Philosophy’, a book which is usually referred to as a great, accessible way to introduce yourself to some key philosophical issues. Emphasis on ‘accessible’. So I thought – great, right up my street, love a bit of philosophy; and I have to admit, I found it very hard to follow at times. But then I got to the final chapter, entitled ‘The Value of Philosophy’. This was definitely up there with the most impactful chapters of a book I’d ever read. And it got me thinking – what am I doing all of this for? Why did I just struggle for hours on end (in vain) trying to understand why the inductive principle cannot be proven by an appeal to experience?
I had an interview at my dream university (to study philosophy) the following day, which was giving me a lot of stress, and here I was wondering what the point of philosophy even was. It’s not that I wasn’t certain that I wanted to study it, not at all – but sometimes, when you’re so immersed in something as expansive as ‘philosophy’, it can be difficult to pinpoint why it has such a massive impact on…well, everything. But you know, always in the right place at the right time, Bertrand Russell had the answer for me – or, at least, part of it.
He begins by stating in this chapter that the biggest tangible impact that philosophy has is on the lives of those that study it, and therefore by extension on those impacted by people who study philosophy, and so on. And I 100% agree with this – I mean, I went vegan from studying utilitarianism in a Year 12 philosophy and ethics lesson. So no, philosophy is not just old white guys sitting in armchairs talking about whether an ought can be derived from an is. It is very much an active discipline that has real life implications.
But how can philosophy answer any of our important questions when it’s so…vague? All of this ‘I think therefore I am’ and ‘would you theoretically pull the theoretical lever of the theoretical trolley’ nonsense is hardly the difference between life and death. But is that all life is? Life and death? To me, philosophy allows and facilitates the asking of questions about the human condition in the broadest sense possible. Like yeah, thanks, I know I’m alive because of respiration and red blood cells and that stuff, but why? For what purpose? What does this ‘being human’ mean for how we should interact with one another? Does it tell me anything about what I should be doing with my time on earth, or is that completely up to me? Philosophy has this amazing ability to make even the most mundane things fascinating, even mystifying. I honestly can’t look at a nice flower anymore without automatically thinking: oh, the teleological argument – do I really see intelligent design in this flower? Is this flower indicative of a higher power at work in the universe? It is, really, a wild ride in my head.
Okay, so it’s all well and good referring to particular ideas in philosophy, and these are undoubtedly important and influential, but what is perhaps most all encompassing for anyone who studies philosophy is the mindset that develops along the way. When I was writing this, it was the day after election day in America and Donald Trump had just announced his victory – whilst simultaneously…losing. But you know, if only he’d studied philosophy! He could have removed some of his ‘arrogant dogmatism’, as Bertrand Russell put it. And I completely agree – the scepticism and critical thinking that philosophy promotes is undoubtedly lacking today, particularly in politics. Not only that, but it forces us to rethink our natural prejudices, imposed on us by our parents, culture, society and so on – it encourages an active rejection of ‘the tyranny of custom’ (another quotation from Russell). Actually, there’s a passage of the book that I think puts this perfectly:
‘The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason’.
An inevitable consequence of failing to adopt this active outlook on life is definitely a great deal of hubris – extreme and foolish pride or overconfidence – something that we are seeing quite a lot in the news nowadays. Not only this, but the emergence of individualism, the loss of value and the replacement of true knowledge with individual arrogance causes us to believe we are ‘the measure of all things’; Russell again writes that what we now call knowledge is not a union with the not-Self – so, knowledge of the world, of external existences - but a set of internal prejudices, habits and desires, making an ‘impenetrable veil between us and the world beyond’. And ‘the person who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like the man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law’.
And going back to this idea of the loss of value, I believe we are increasingly finding ourselves in a world that values the individual over the community, sciences over the humanities - the economy over human life. When we find ourselves in a world where as soon as we wake up we can’t wait to go to bed again, when it’s Monday we are already praying for it to be Friday, to me at least it’s rather indicative of a problematic perspective on life which has become irreversibly moulded around the economy, capitalist ideals and such. And who knows, maybe this is the ‘right’ way of life in some strange way, but I, at least, am not convinced.
I’ve recently been reading a lot around the philosophy of ecofeminism – which essentially brings together ecology and feminism, and asks how they function together, symbiotically. I personally find this branch of philosophy so fascinating, and I think it has so much to offer in response to all the issues we’re finding ourselves with nowadays, like the climate crisis, inequality for women, the loss of value and so on. In pinpointing these issues and the factors that contribute to them, I think a solution is so much more likely to be found. I recently finished reading a book called ‘Ecofeminism’ by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, which I would highly recommend reading no matter what you’re interested in, because it basically covers everything. It brought together, feminism, environmentalism, sociology, politics, biology, economics and so many more, and spoke about issues like the myth of catching-up development that the North projects onto the South, rape, the issues with the concept of GDP, colonialism, sex, reproductive technologies, eugenics, commercial surrogacy, overpopulation, private property – and always linking it back to our relationship with nature. Honestly, mind blowing.
Bertrand Russell, in this chapter, wrote: ‘through the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplated [philosophy] achieves some share in infinity’. Firstly, how beautiful is that; secondly, how true is that. I’ve just brushed the surface here, but one thing’s for certain - philosophy is literally infinite, as it contemplates the infinite. And how amazing that we can transcend this room, this town, this world, just through thought. That, to me, is the value of philosophy.